John retells the Revelation as a pre-millennialist.
Which simply means Christ comes back before a thousand year reign of peace.
Revelation 20
This chapter shows the millennium.
However, this revelation sits in a canon of the rest of the New Testament which also speaks of Christ’s return and with us not taking what John sees as a time-line then it is impossible to say what order it will all happen. Is it a literal 1000 years? Was it literally 30 minutes (8:1)? 3 and a half days? 5 months? 1260 days? 42 months? John says so, but that doesn’t mean it is literal.
So what happens in the millennium?
The martyrs reign.
That’s you and me.
The martyrs are not an elite group. Yes John sees those who had been beheaded which is poignant for us today as for his generation.
But in his vision all faithful Christians have been killed, that’s what happened. It still does in parts of the world.
So we reign with Christ. We do so without the presence of evil.
What we don’t know is if there were unbelievers on earth in John’s vision. If so, do they become saved? If not, the purpose of the 1,000 years is a mystery.
Then Satan is released and again he attacks and again is defeated!
No matter how many times he attacks, he is always defeated!
Those whose name is not in the book of life will not live.
So did the unsaved dead come back to life to die again?
The lake of fire is not there for human beings though people do go there, it is rather there for Satan, death and hades, they are destroyed.
In Christ we are called to reign, it is what Adam and Eve lost for us. Though we struggle at times to hold on to that rulership of our life and often we are ruled by outside forces, yet, we know, that in the end all of this will pale into insignificance as we reign with Christ in the millennium!!
Missions Paul 